Articles Posted in Labor – Employment Law

This article is part two of a three-part series discussing how employers may successfully challenge class certification of lawsuits seeking overtime and minimum wages. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets forth a unique procedure of “collective actions,” instead of “class actions.” A collective action requires cumbersome procedures to get putative plaintiffs to join…

This article is part of a three-part series discussing the ways that employers may defend against measures taken by employee-plaintiffs who sue their employers to bring in additional plaintiff-employees into the lawsuit. Part one of this series defines and distinguishes between Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) collective actions and class action claims. Part two describes…

This article is part one of a two-part series on the commission-based employee overtime wage exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA, at 18 U.S.C. § 207, generally requires employees to be paid one and a half times their normally hourly rate when working more than forty hours in a week. However,…

Employers may invoke the legal doctrine of judicial estoppel to prevent employees from suing their employers when those employees fail to disclose that claim in bankruptcy. In the recent case of Smith v. Haynes & Haynes P.C., 940 F.3d 635 (11th Cir. 2019), the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which governs…

Florida law prohibits retaliation against an employee seeking worker compensation benefits. A recent Florida appellate decision allowed a worker compensation retaliation claim even though the employee never actually filed a worker compensation claim before termination of his employment. Peter Mavrick is a Fort Lauderdale employment attorney who defends businesses and business owners against claims of…

Florida and New York’s non-compete laws are protective of business interests in customer relationships and goodwill. Due to the mobility of workers as well as the frequent overbreadth of non-compete covenants in today’s economy, there are often cases when the non-compete laws of more than one state may be implicated In the context of employment…

An employee bringing a hostile work environment claim must show that the complained of conduct is sufficiently severe to claim unlawful discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Florida Civil Rights Act. Generally, courts consider factors that include whether the incidents are frequent, severe, physically threatening or humiliating, and interfere with…

To qualify as sexual harassment under Florida and Federal antidiscrimination laws, sexual conduct between employees must be so severe and pervasive that it alters the “terms and conditions” of employment. While it may be prudent for an employer to discourage sexual relationships between supervisors and employees, the mere fact that an employee has been the…

Certain types of employee complaints to an employer qualify as “protected activity.” An employer that responds to a protected complaint by terminating, demoting, or otherwise taking an adverse employment action against the employee risks being sued for retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Florida Civil Rights Act of…

Employers in litigation against their employees face the challenge of not only dealing with the claims made by those employees, but the threat of being left to pay the attorneys’ fees bill of their opponents. Employers can mitigate that risk, and sometimes even turn the tables and win their attorneys’ fees from their former employees,…